If you’ve ever given away linux livecd’s and wondered if they were ever tried, you might be interested in reading this newsforge article about a guy that followed up with several livecd recipients about 6 months on. It’s interesting to see what he found. There were a limited number, but it is interesting.
Category: Computers
-
Some companies unable to secure your data
It’s sad, but true. Some companies are just plain irresponsible with your data. Whether it be credit card information, or address and phone number there are those that aren’t good about keeping their databases private. The securityfix is reporting that a recent survey found 12% of people had been notified by companies that they did business with over a breach of security resulting in data loss. Apparently 20% of those, closed accounts subsequently.
-
klax KDE 3.5 RC1 screenshot tour
KDE 3.5 RC1 has been out long enough that there’s already a series of screenshots… (11/11/05 was the announcement). Screenshots are available here. The screen caps were taken from the KLAX livecd.
-
OSWD.org is back up
I’ve just looked and noticed that oswd.org (Open source web design). They currently boast 715 free templates. In their absense several other sites have sprung up to fill the void they had left… openwebtemplates.com is one such recent entry. There’s also openwebdesign.org with over 1300 templates. There are several sites that seem to be mirroring the original list of zipped templates from oswd.org, but I don’t find any others with thumbnails, openwebdesign.org appears to have the complete list.
-
Netscape 7.1 download file could not be saved
I’ve run across this a couple of times and to save me a few more Google searches….
Under Netscape 7.1, trying to download a file, there is a long message (with a temporary file address), and the following…
(long path to file like c:\windows\temp\….. ) could not be saved because the source file could not be found. Try again later or contact the server administrator.
-
The wolf in sheeps clothing, software that claims to be anti-spyware, but installs more spyware on your pc
The bad news is that the spyware situation for home pc users can be murkier every day. I remember a particular user who once installed an antivirus program because a popup appeared claiming to have found viruses on his drive, next thing he knew he was having all sorts of spyware problems, viruses found all the time (to “prove” the antivirus component was running.), etc. etc.
Spyware Confidential has the story on the latest wolf in sheeps clothing, something called spyaxe. This link shows a screenshot of one fake warning. One problem is how to describe to people how to identify legitimate versus illegit popups and warnings.
-
Getting rid of an old PC – wipe the hard drive!!
I’ve said it before and mentioned DBAN (Darik’s Boot and Nuke) as my favorite tool for this, but Sunbeltblog is mentioning this and it’s worth reminding you. When you replace a PC, you might keep the hard drive around for a short period to make sure you have all your data, but PLEASE plan on finding some way to delete or wipe or nuke or destroy ALL the data on the drive.
-
Free OpenOffice.org training videos
For those of you that can’t be dropped into an application and “wing it” learning by doing, newsforge has announced some openoffice.org training videos that are now available for free download. So, if you ever wanted or needed a video walkthrough for you or someone else on OpenOffice it looks like that need has been filled. They’re actually excerpts from a video cd that comes from an upcoming book on OpenOffice, entitled Point & Click OpenOffice.org.
-
The Continuing Stooo-ry of the Sony DRM rootkit debacle….
Let’s see there are a couple more notes to pass along on Sony DRM rootkit news. This story could go on for some time, it’s already had legs for about a week or more and just when things started to wind down a bit, there’s a bit more. First up, the EFF has a writeup on the EULA that Sony sends along with it’s DRM-ified Cds. Among other things it obliges you to wipe any copies of songs of your pc if you’re cd is lost or stolen, it cannot be played on a work computer, you can’t take it with you if you leave the country, you MUST install any and all updates to their software or the content is forfeit, SONY-BMG reserves the right to install backdoors or other means to protect their content, SONY will only be liable for a maximum of $5, if you declare bankrupcy you must forfeit all the music on your pc, no derivitave works, (photo albums for family/friends, mash-ups, or sampling), music on the pc may NOT be transfered even if the cd accompanies the transfer.
-
Opendocument format getting more support
There is support building for the opendocument format, it seems. The format is designed to prevent document lockin to proprietary formats and the group promoting it would like to see it supported by all office suites. (Currently OpenOffice.org 2 and Staroffice support the format, koffice 1.4.2 partially supports it (1.5 due for release after the new year should fully support the format. IBM Workplace (based on openoffice) also partially supports the new format.)